Search results for "VACCINES"

Immune cells in colorectal cancer: prognostic relevance and therapeutic strategies.

2008

During the last two decades, considerable efforts have been made to improve the prevention, early diagnosis and therapy of colorectal cancer by gaining enhanced insights into disease-specific pathogenesis. Along these lines, tumor-infiltrating immune cells turned out to be critical indicators for an efficient antitumor immune response and the number and type of tumor-infiltrating immune cells determined the resulting tumor prognosis. This review aims to describe the prognostic relevance of the different subsets of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and highlights their specific function in the complex process of immune system-mediated rejection of colorectal cancer cells. Considering the clini…

CIMT 2019: report on the 17th Annual Meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy

2019

The 17th Annual Meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT), Europe`s cancer immunotherapy meeting, took place in Mainz, Germany from 21 to 23 May, 2019. Recent advancements in cance...

Controversies surrounding human papilloma virus infection, head & neck vs oral cancer, implications for prophylaxis and treatment.

2009

Head & Neck Cancer (HNC) represents the sixth most common malignancy worldwide and it is historically linked to well-known behavioural risk factors, i.e., tobacco smoking and/or the alcohol consumption. Recently, substantial evidence has been mounting that Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is playing an increasing important role in oral cancer. Because of the attention and clamor surrounding oral HPV infection and related cancers, as well as the use of HPV prophylactic vaccines, in this invited perspective the authors raise some questions and review some controversial issues on HPV infection and its role in HNC, with a particular focus on oral squamous cell carcinoma. The problematic def…

Immunotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer: a further piece of the puzzle or a striking strategy?

2014

Introduction: Treatment of ovarian cancer has been long standardized with the inclusion of surgery and chemotherapy based on platinum and taxanes, this strategy reaching high remission rates. However, when this treatment fails, further options are available with little benefit. Since ovarian cancer has specific immunologic features, actually immunotherapy is under evalua- 15 tion to overcome treatment failure in patients experiencing recurrence. Areas covered: Immunogenicity of ovarian cancer and its relationship with clinical outcomes is briefly reviewed. The kinds of immunotherapeutic strategies are summarized. The clinical trials investigating immunotherapy in recurrent ovarian cancer pa…

The regulatory landscape for actively personalized cancer immunotherapies

2013

New chimaeric hepatitis B virus core particles carrying hantavirus (serotype Puumala) epitopes: immunogenicity and protection against virus challenge

1999

Virus-like particles generated by the heterologous expression of virus structural proteins are able to potentiate the immunogenicity of foreign epitopes presented on their surface. In recent years epitopes of various origin have been inserted into the core antigen of hepatitis B virus (HBV) allowing the formation of chimaeric HBV core particles. Chimaeric core particles carrying the 45 N-terminal amino acids of the Puumala hantavirus nucleocapsid protein induced protective immunity in bank voles, the natural host of this hantavirus. Particles applied in the absence of adjuvant are still immunogenic and partially protective in bank voles. Although a C-terminally truncated core antigen of HBV…

Chimaeric HBV core particles carrying a defined segment of Puumala hantavirus nucleocapsid protein evoke protective immunity in an animal model

1998

Abstract Hantaviruses are rodent-born agents which are pathogenic in humans causing haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. To induce a protective immunity against a European hantavirus (Puumala) we constructed chimaeric hepatitis B virus (HBV) core particles carrying defined fragments of the Puumala virus nucleocapsid protein. After immunisation of bank voles, the natural host of Puumala virus, with core particles possessing an insertion of the N-terminal part of Puumala virus nucleocapsid protein, four of five animals were protected against subsequent virus challenge. The results show that the major protective region of the nucleocapsid protein is located …

An amino-terminal segment of hantavirus nucleocapsid protein presented on hepatitis B virus core particles induces a strong and highly cross-reactive…

2004

AbstractPreviously, we have demonstrated that hepatitis B virus (HBV) core particles tolerate the insertion of the amino-terminal 120 amino acids (aa) of the Puumala hantavirus nucleocapsid (N) protein. Here, we demonstrate that the insertion of 120 amino-terminal aa of N proteins from highly virulent Dobrava and Hantaan hantaviruses allows the formation of chimeric core particles. These particles expose the inserted foreign protein segments, at least in part, on their surface. Analysis by electron cryomicroscopy of chimeric particles harbouring the Puumala virus (PUUV) N segment revealed 90% T = 3 and 10% T = 4 shells. A map computed from T = 3 shells shows additional density splaying out …

A hantavirus nucleocapsid protein segment exposed on hepatitis B virus core particles is highly immunogenic in mice when applied without adjuvants or…

2005

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) core particles carrying the amino-terminal 120 amino acids (aa) of the nucleocapsid (N) protein of the hantaviruses Dobrava, Hantaan or Puumala have been demonstrated to be highly immunogenic in mice when complexed with adjuvants. Here we demonstrate that even without adjuvant, these chimeric particles induced high-titered, and strongly cross-reactive N-specific antibody responses in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. The induced N-specific antibodies represented all IgG subclasses. Pre-existing core-specific antibodies did not abrogate the induction of an N-specific immune response by a hantavirus N insert presented on core particles. Therefore, chimeric core particles should…

Fetal Calf Serum-Free Generation of Functionally Active Murine Dendritic Cells Suitable for In Vivo Therapeutic Approaches

2000

Standard protocols to generate mouse dendritic cells (DC) generally use culture medium supplemented with fetal calf serum; however, reinjection in vivo of DC cultured in fetal calf serum results in priming to xenogeneic proteins that clearly limits the use of such DC. We therefore established a fetal calf serum-free culture system for the generation of murine DC from bone marrow precursors. DC can be generated fetal calf serum-free using RPMI supplemented with 1.5% syngeneic mouse serum. Although the yield of DC grown under fetal calf serum-free conditions was somewhat lower than that of the standard culture, large numbers of DC could be generated without the exposure to xenogeneic proteins…